


and i'd give you rainbows

by windingwoods



Category: World Trigger (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, Non graphic discussion of injuries, Shapeshifting, canon lore like trion and the structure of border still in place tho, magic school au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28250745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windingwoods/pseuds/windingwoods
Summary: The amusement sharpened into something like pride, or mischief—sort of hard to tell with Inukai. The smile he gave Kage had a wobbly edge to it, as if genuine excitement was bleeding into his usual unruffled persona. “Ah, we have a plan, actually,” he said. “We’re going to set the mood, so to speak. And then, riding the high of Christmas Eve romanticism, Arafune’s going to ask Murakami on a date.”
Relationships: Inukai Sumiharu/Kageura Masato, background arako
Kudos: 11





	and i'd give you rainbows

**Author's Note:**

> where to begin with this!! first of all, this work is actually an excerpt from a much bigger shared magic school AU that a friend and i have been adding on for quite a while now. it started as a hp au, as many of you might be able to tell, but we've been steadily remaking it into a neutral setting because fuck Miss Terf and everything she's ever written. 
> 
> if you feel as if you're missing something, it's probably because of this oops. the inukage dynamic in particular is a bit different from their current canon situation because they're at a different point in time where they've had the time to talk some stuff through. (ashihara please Manifest)
> 
> this is obviously set in japan, so the specific christmas traditions and the emphasis on the romantic side of it all come from that! the title is from the english version of Christmas Eve, by Tatsuro Yamashita. enjoy!!

Kage knew that he should have listened to his brain the moment he heard the telltale, peppy jingles of Christmas music wafting from the home economics room like some festive ghost ready to reap his soul. Ever since starting boarding school he hadn’t spent Christmas Eve at his parents’ restaurant in years, but the animosity towards the haunting, dulcet tones of famous pop singers had stuck with him nonetheless. He should have run, just like his legs were screaming at him to do, but Toma and Zoe had asked for his help. 

So Kage had braved the jingles, making his way to the door of the home economics room as if he were walking the plank. He’d steeled himself and he’d thrown open the door, ready to face whatever mess those two might have caused, only to be met with a far more surreal scene than he could have prepared himself for. Toma was belting out Tatsuro Yamashita’s _Christmas Eve_ with a whisk held to his mouth as a makeshift microphone and Inukai leaning against his back, striking a much similar pose with a spoon as he sang along. Both the whisk and the spoon were caked in what Kage could only hope was food.

Toma and Inukai both froze at the sight of him. Kage felt the faintest flicker of embarrassment from Inukai, but it was gone before he could blink. Toma, on the other hand, was _radiating_ predatory intent. 

Taking one step back into the hallway, Kage asked, “Where’s Zoe?” 

Toma’s hand grabbed his arm before he could make his escape, closing around him with a steel grip. “He’s helping the girls decorate, of course,” he said with a smile that made a chill run down Kage’s spine. “I actually have to go as well, so you stay here and help Inukai with the shortcake in my stead, alright?”

That wasn’t the answer Kage had been hoping for. “The girls?” he asked, feeling closer and closer to losing his hold on reality. As if to mock him, Junichi Inagaki started playing as he spoke. “Shortcake?”

“Nire and Kon,” Inukai said with a placating smile. It did not placate Kage in the slightest. “They’re decorating the Independent Studies common room for Christmas Eve. Kagami enchanted a bunch of stuff for the occasion, it’s going to be quite the sight.”

“... Why though?” Kage asked. In all the years spent at the school, the closest they’d ever come to celebrating Christmas was that one time Hikari had gotten really into Yule. Needless to say, trying to brew wassail in the potions classroom had landed them all in detention. 

Toma clamped him on the shoulder, then he shoved past him while maneuvering Kage further into the room, effectively cutting off his escape route. “I would love to explain,” he said, lying, “but I’m running late, gotta go! I’ll be back later to fry the chicken!”

The door slammed behind him as he went. Kage glared at it, but that didn’t change the situation he was in. He could feel Inukai’s amusement dance on his skin, ticklish and familiar when it had once felt like cruel pinpricks. 

“We’re having a party,” Inukai explained. He’d gone back to tending to the shortcake dough, carefully pouring it into a mold. “Could you cut those strawberries for me? Toma already washed them.”

Kage tried to protest, but the words stayed firmly lodged in his throat. Just standing there gaping at Inukai was hardly constructive, so he moved to where the bowl of strawberries sat next to a cutting board. “And why, pray tell, are we having a party?”

The amusement sharpened into something like pride, or mischief—sort of hard to tell with Inukai. The smile he gave Kage had a wobbly edge to it, as if genuine excitement was bleeding into his usual unruffled persona. “Ah, we have a plan, actually,” he said. “We’re going to set the mood, so to speak. And then, riding the high of Christmas Eve romanticism, Arafune’s going to ask Murakami on a date.”

Kage choked. The knife sliced down a breath away from his finger, mangling a strawberry instead. 

“You okay there?” Inukai turned to look at him. He’d put the mold in the oven and he was resting his splayed palms on its warm surface. 

“Fantastic,” Kage said through gritted teeth. “Just wondering, though. Does Arafune even know of your ‘plan’?”

That got him an unimpressed stare in return. He sliced another strawberry. 

“He’s on board with it, of course,” Inukai said with a sniff. “Actually, it’s quite genius if you think about it. Arafune doesn’t even need to specify it’s a date, because it’s Christmas Eve. He can just ask Murakami to go with him somewhere, and the atmosphere will do the heavy lifting for him.”

Kage blinked at him. “That’s,” he said, “the most harebrained, inconsistent plan I’ve ever heard of. And I have to deal with Taichi in rank wars on the regular.”

Defiance flared in the air between them, licking at him with its flame-like heat. Infuriatingly enough, Inukai’s smile didn’t waver. “That’s not a very Christmas-y thing to say,” was all he said, tilting his head to the side. “Poor Taichi might have been the one to come up with this plan for Murakami’s sake, for all you know.”

“Yeah, no,” Kage said, trying his best not to snort. “That was you, considering how pissed you are right now.”

Had he said something like that before, things would have turned ugly. Inukai would have shut him out, skittish and slippery and angry at himself for having let someone see through the mask; in turn, that would have stoked Kage’s own anger and frustration, building up until the next time he would lash out. Inukai’s fears and Kage’s side effect didn’t mesh well, after all.

That had changed after he’d found Inukai in the forest at dawn one day, bruised and feverish, with streaks of caked blood all over him. Kage hadn’t been the first to find out he was a werewolf by any means, but the discovery had more or less upended the way he thought of Inukai. It had been the missing piece that made the rest of the picture fall into place, the key to read him without getting a headache. 

And Inukai had accepted that, much to Kage’s initial bewilderment. He’d let him in, to the point that the two of them had gone from one-sided hostility to mutual friendship in the span of a school term spent sneaking out at night when the moon was full and Inukai didn’t have anyone else to keep an eye on him. Kage had even started taking a shapeshifting elective, so that he could transform into something capable of running as fast as Inukai when he was a wolf. Something that Inukai could hold on to as the pains of his own bones rearranging themselves wracked him. 

“You’re being rude,” Inukai said. The defiance had subsided, replaced by a much fonder exasperation. “Less talking shit, more slicing strawberries. We have a couple to matchmake.”

“I’m still not on board with that,” Kage retorted, but he still grabbed the next strawberry from the bowl. 

The disembodied melody of yet another Christmas song floated around the room, mingling with the quiet happiness radiating from Inukai as he hummed along. 

❅ ❆ ❅

Kagami had really outdone herself with the enchanted decorations, Kage had to admit. While tastefully avoiding any stray mistletoe, she had disassembled a whole string of fairy lights and she’d charmed them individually to fly around the room in lazy trajectories, like a blinking sea of fireflies. The baubles she’d painted swirled as if the drawings had a life of their own and tiny, wood-carved reindeers scampered about on the buffet table. 

It might have easily come off as overwhelming, especially to people who weren’t in the habit of celebrating Christmas to begin with, but Kage could see Kon’s touch all over the place, gently steering Kagami’s artistry back towards the land of common sense. He could only hope Hikari hadn’t made too much of a nuisance of herself during the whole process. 

Perhaps most surprising of all, the plan had gone exactly as Inukai had anticipated. The party had been in full swing when Arafune had walked up to Ko with an expression more wooden than the tiny reindeers, asking him if he wanted to go get some fresh air. Ko had taken one good look at his face and Kage had watched, utterly mystified, as a blush crept up his neck. 

Inukai hadn’t stopped pinging Kage with smug satisfaction for the rest of the night. 

“You’re insufferable,” Kage said now, as he chucked the last styrofoam cup inside a trash bag. Everyone else had already gone home, but Kuruma had insisted on taking care of the bulk of tidying up until Kon and Taichi had ushered him away. 

“Insufferably brilliant, you mean,” Inukai replied from where he was sprawled on one of the softer armchairs. It had been the full moon a few days ago and he still bore the signs of exhaustion on him, almost imperceptible to those who didn’t know where to look. His hair was slightly mussed, his eyes slightly lucid. Compact powder dusted his skin where one of the worse bruises had yet to fade.

Brilliant wasn’t the word Kage would use to describe him, no matter how lovely a light the decorations cast on his face. 

His worries must have shown, because Inukai waved a hand his way. “No need to fret over me like that,” he said, “I’m fine.”

“Yesterday Ikoma patted you on the back and you started wheezing so hard Hiyami raided the infirmary for an inhaler and Ninomiya almost had a panic attack,” Kage said. Immediately, barbs of annoyance pressed into him, but he ignored them. He just stared at the idiot sitting in front of him, waiting. 

“I may have cracked a rib or two,” Inukai admitted in a low voice, once he realized that the obstinate silence wasn’t getting him anywhere. “Everything’s under control, so don’t give me that look! I went to Mr. Karasawa for treatment and they’re healing really fast. Rugby magic, he says.”

Satisfied with that, Kage hummed. “I take it you’ve got illusion magic on?” he asked, because a part of him still couldn’t help but worry, no matter how hard he tried to snuff it all out. If his feelings for Inukai had been conflicting at first, now that he didn’t have an excuse to dislike him anymore Kage felt as if every smile could turn him into putty at times. 

Inukai heaved a theatrical sigh, then he winced. Idiot. “No, I’m not binding. I do have a modicum of self preservation.” He pointed at his chest. “Little Tsuji charmed my sweater, it was quite sweet of him.”

“Alright,” Kage said. He looked down at the trash bag, then back at Inukai. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping, rather than watching me tidy up?”

Inukai avoided his eyes, but Kage could still feel a twinge from the strange mix of emotions he was giving off. Frustration, awkwardness, the focused determination that he cloaked himself in during matches. “For an empath,” he said quietly, “you can be pretty oblivious.” Then, without giving Kage the time to react, he got up. “We’re done here! I’m flying you back to the dormitory, just throw that down the garbage chute already.” 

Something about the whole situation didn’t sit well with Kage. He felt restless all of sudden, as if he’d made the wrong move at some point, but Inukai had already slipped outside. It was chilly outside, so Kage disposed of the trash bag and hurried after him. 

Inukai sat sidesaddle on his broom, silhouetted in silvery blue against the back-drop of the courtyard at night. He didn’t say a word as Kage hopped on behind him, but the feeble, feather touch of mirth brushed against Kage’s skin when he wrapped his arms around Inukai’s waist, tinged with something else. 

As they rose from the ground Kage adjusted his grip, careful not to push against Inukai’s rib cage. On a different night, he might have commented about how Mr. Kinuta would have blown a gasket if he’d seen them fly without any safety gear on. Inukai would have laughed him off, breezy and undaunted. 

At the moment, all he could do was look at the fuzz of short hair at the base of Inukai’s head, trying to make sense of whatever his side effect was telling him. 

Feeling as if his tongue had turned to lead, he asked, “Have we been on a date all day?”

The broom came to an abrupt halt, sending the both of them careening forward. Kage yelped, unconsciously gripping Inukai’s coat while his perception exploded into a myriad of different inputs. The starry sky blinked in and out of his vision as he tried to focus, much like the enchanted fairy lights. 

“You tell me,” Inukai said, clipped. He turned to Kage then, pinning him with his stare. “Have we?”

Longing, that was the emotion Kage couldn’t pinpoint. It was washing over him in waves now, daring him to turn away from it; as if he ever could bring himself to, after months of cradling each and every spark that Inukai saw fit to throw his way. 

“We very nearly burned a cake and then you watched me pick up garbage,” Kage said. “Not a very romantic first date, if you ask me. You should go beg Arafune for pointers.”

This close, he could see the shadow cast by Inukai’s lashes tremble. He could see the bags under his eyes, the red mark of a scratch right underneath his hairline, the flash of teeth underneath his lips. Inukai’s breath smelled of oolong tea. 

“Or,” Inukai said, his voice flaring with the usual brazenness, “you could show me up.”

Excitement raced through Kage, his and Inukai’s alike. “You _really_ are insufferable,” he said, not bothering to wipe the thrill from his words. When Inukai grinned at him, he felt as if the stars and the fairy lights had nestled inside of him. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> this fic was cross-posted [on dreamwidth](https://bravesword.dreamwidth.org/481.html). i've been thinking of moving away from ao3 lately, so it's likely that i might start posting entirely on dreamwidth instead. it's all up in the air right now, especially as i work on more personal projects that aren't fanfiction, but i'm getting the word out.


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